How team-building activities increase productivity at work

To take your business to the next level, you need a productive and engaged team. A team that supports each other, promoters free-flowing communication, encourages the members falling behind, and together celebrates the victories or faces the losses.

A good team that works towards a common goal can yield better results for your business than a group of employees who have no sense of belonging to your organization. Many organizations conduct team-building activities to bind their employees with a strong team spirit and improve connection. Employee oriented investment can increase productivity, employee engagement, and produce loyal employees. Let’s explore how team-building activities increase the productivity of an organization’s workforce and take a look at some fun team-building activities that you can try with your team members. 

What are team-building activities? 

 Team-building happens over time. When we talk about employees, each individual is completely different. Each person has their own journey, workplace persona, personal life, and purpose behind joining the organization. As a leader or manager, it is your job to unite these different people to achieve a common organizational goal. Completing ample projects together will certainly help you build a team, but carrying out activities outside the work environment in a fun playful manner will help you form stronger connections. This is what team-building activities are all about. It is about improving collaboration, learning, team dynamics, productivity, and improving communication. 

How do team-building activities help make your workplace more productive?

Improve communication

For any team to function effectively, you need good communication among the team members. If someone is facing an issue, they should be able to communicate it to their coworkers without any hesitation. Communicating issues to the right person at the right time, helps employees and organization teams solve issues. The sooner the issues get resolved, the faster the work will be completed. 

The way individuals act inside a workplace is influenced by the style of communication promoted throughout the company. For example, a nice pep talk from a senior employee can greatly motivate another employee to accomplish the task at hand. The ability of employees to communicate with one another has a significant impact on interpersonal interactions during meetings.

In workplaces like an ad agency, no project can be successfully completed without talking with each other properly. Most of their work happens through brainstorming, and brainstorming requires people to speak out without hesitation and fear. 

In a workforce, each employee has a different experience level and skill set, therefore talking about team-building exercises related to work can be overwhelming for some employees. However, incorporating a team-building activity like a scavenger hunt where employees can communicate freely with each other to win the game, effective communication becomes easier and cultivates connections between employees. 

Creates a positive work environment

A positive work environment is highly necessary to create a productive workforce. Employees work for 8 hours in a place where everyone is often trying their best to climb higher ranks and achieve company goals. In such a highly competitive place, it is difficult to instill teamwork. However, when employees perform an effective team-building activity, it can give your employees a chance to become friends. A friendly work environment is a key element for an employee to enjoy work a little more. 

Encourage creativity

Businesses depend on their workers to share ideas with the team in order to develop brilliant, creative solutions. Today, there is no scarcity of companies. Small enterprises are proliferating in abundance around the city. In such a situation, you’ll need some original creativity to make your firm stand out. Organizations can’t wait for a creative idea to strike in the middle of the night. Companies must generate ideas using techniques like brainstorming, the six hat method, or simple group discussions within their teams. However, for such methods to succeed, great teamwork is required.

Participating in team-building exercises encourages employee bonding. Hence, collaboration becomes easier. People refuse to speak out about their ideas because they believe they lack value. But if your team functions well, even the most reluctant individuals will share their most absurd ideas, and the rest of the team can fine-tune them to come up with a logical yet creative solution. 

Improve motivation

Without motivation, working seems very difficult. No one can motivate you better than a team member. Have you observed a sports team? They keep motivating the rest of the team when they lose some match points. Good motivating words from a team member will increase the morale of the whole. We can start inculcating this habit of motivating each other through some sports related activities as part of a team-building exercise. A dodgeball or volleyball match is a perfect opportunity. There is so much that people can learn about teamwork by playing a team sport. 

Get to know others’ strengths and weaknesses

When working in teams, distribution of work is the most essential part of project planning. For this, it is important to know the strengths and weaknesses of each team member. We all know our individual strengths, but what about your team members? Please, don’t read their resumes to find this out. We are not talking about what software they can use, we are talking about soft skills. For instance, if a person excels in communicating with others, they can be given the responsibility of coordinating with the client and other departments of the organization. Some people find it difficult to work under pressure. You can provide them with help when they have to work under such circumstances. A fun activity like a treasure hunt can be an entertaining way to observe what each member of the team is capable of. 

Build trust

Most team-building exercises are simple team games. But in any team game, trust is very crucial to win. A team-building activity can help your employees to trust each other. Trust building is very important and can be developed through fun activities. 

Boost confidence levels

There are some employees who have a very reserved personality in business. A day filled with team-building activities is perfect to help them open up, become comfortable with other employees, and also increase their confidence level. You can use some icebreaker activities to help them befriend other employees. These people might require more encouragement than others, and a good team should be able to provide that. A positive environment like this can help even the most nervous rookie to give their best and rely on the other members for help. 

Learn more skills

Team-building exercises are great for developing new business skills that will launch your company into a more successful business. The exercise can benefit the employees by helping them improve skills like problem-solving, leadership, group management, brainstorming, and team dynamics. 

Fun team-building activities you can try

Before you start scratching your head for some great team-building activities, I would like you to analyze your need for team-building. As a business owner do you want to establish trust in your team? Or is it leadership skills? Once you have a clear objective behind organizing team-building events, you can start thinking about the most valuable team activities to achieve your goals. If you aren’t familiar with any, you can certainly use the internet. Let’s explore some your employees might thoroughly enjoy!

Tree planting

How about a team-building activity that also contributes to society? Tree planting is just one example of giving back, getting outside by going on a hike together, starting a food drive, or investing time into a community garden.  These are some options to help your community while improving your teams empathy, community engagement, and company image. 

Guess the figure

Looking for activities for remote workers? In this game, one team member will be shown a figure. It could be anything. Just some squares, circles, triangles, and polygons randomly arranged would do too. Now the person gets 2 minutes to memorize the shape, and then they have to describe the figure while other people draw it on their end. The description has to be steps to draw that figure, and it can be done only verbally and without using hand gestures. This game is really fun, especially if there is a time limit. It helps in developing communication skills and also helps others to freely ask questions regarding the description they are giving. If any team member is able to draw it perfectly, the team wins. 

Scavenger hunt

A new take on the classic game that benefits your team. Make a team of 6-7 people. Each team has to find one object with initial letters from A-Z. For the second part, they have to find objects from 1-10. For example, they can bring or take a photo of an Apple for A, a basket for B, and so on till Z. For the second part, they can do one stapler, two pens, 3 papers, and so on till 10. One rule is that the objects used in the first and the second part should not be repeated. It is recommended to give a time limit to the teams. Another rule is that purchasing things is restricted. The team that does this correctly and before the time ends is the winner. 

There are ample benefits of team-building activities for team members and your business. But overall, team-building helps you create a workforce that collaborates together and works efficiently toward common goals. It will also help you promote positive company culture and loyalty to your organization. If your HR team is too busy to conduct such activities, reach out to  professionals who facilitate effective team-building activities for corporations all over the world.

List of team building exercises

Team building exercises help foster communication, collaboration, trust, and teamwork within the group. Some of the team-building exercises are as follows:

Trust fall

One person falls backward, trusting their teammates to catch them. This team-building activity builds trust and emphasizes the importance of support and reliable communication.

Marshmallow challenge

Teams compete to build the tallest freestanding structures using spaghetti sticks, tape, and a marshmallow. This team-building exercise encourages creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving.

Escape room

The team works together to solve puzzles, find clues, and escape a locked room within a time limit. This team-building activity fosters teamwork, critical thinking, and decision-making under pressure.

Blindfolded obstacle course

One team member is blindfolded, and the rest guide them through an obstacle course using only verbal instructions. This exercise promotes trust, communication, and reliance.

Team-building workshops

Organize workshops or training sessions focused on team dynamics, communication skills, conflict resolution, or leadership development to promote teamwork and collaboration at work.